An appeal was being made for boats and ropes, to help navigate the flooded streets and reach stranded victims.

The main priority for rescuers was to try and get all the affected people out before more rains arrived, he added.

Sandbags were placed around several giant heads carved by the Olmecs, an ancient pre-Columbian people, at Tabasco's La Venta archaeological site, but the water rose half-way up the three-metre tall statues.

Flooding has also affected the southern state of Chiapas, where several thousand people have been moved to safety.

Twenty-one people died last week when storms forced an oil platform into another rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

The storms have forced the closure of three of Mexico's main oil ports, preventing almost all exports and halting a fifth of the country's oil production.

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